Famous Good Eggs

I was watching the Will.I.Am documentary at the weekend and this got me thinking, how many people who make it to become famous, actually stay grounded and give back to the community they grew up in.

Good 'ol Will has spent millions in a rough part of LA educating kids and giving as much back to the community as his time can permit. He doesn't seem to have any vices, keeps in touch with his family and keeps on the right side of the law.

So how many do we have in our society? David Beckham? No, couldn't keep his hands to himself. So who are our wholesome heroes and heroins?

My hero is a guy called Col. John Blashford-Snell OBE. In fairness he was born to privilege but he has given a heck of a lot back.

He formed Operation Raleigh and Operation Drake to inspire and get kids active, and formed the Scientific Exploration Society for adults to do the same. Before I met him I was turning in to a couch potato. After seeing him give a presentation and a brief but funny chat with him afterwards I've been on three expeditions with the SES, including tracking wild elephants in Nepal as part of a nature conservation survey, searching for the lost Inca city of Paititi in Bolivia, and diving on a previously uncharted structure of the south east coast of India with Monty Halls and Graham Hancock. (the first two expeditions were led by Blashers himself).

He does lots of work with children and schools and still leads expeditions even though he's 77!

My hero is a guy called Col. John Blashford-Snell OBE. In fairness he was born to privilege but he has given a heck of a lot back.

He formed Operation Raleigh and Operation Drake to inspire and get kids active, and formed the Scientific Exploration Society for adults to do the same. Before I met him I was turning in to a couch potato. After seeing him give a presentation and a brief but funny chat with him afterwards I've been on three expeditions with the SES, including tracking wild elephants in Nepal as part of a nature conservation survey, searching for the lost Inca city of Paititi in Bolivia, and diving on a previously uncharted structure of the south east coast of India with Monty Halls and Graham Hancock. (the first two expeditions were led by Blashers himself).

He does lots of work with children and schools and still leads expeditions even though he's 77!

He is a real legend!

Didn't he once deliver a grand piano to a remote tribe somewhere because they asked him for one the last time he was there?

"it is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it."

Yes he did! A friend of mine was on that expedition as well. The Wiwi tribe or something like that.

Of course there was the question of whether they were serious when they asked him for the piano in the first place. That said they also did a lot a sanitation work and dug wells to get fresh water for the tribe as well so it worked out well even if they were a bit surprised about the piano.

Here's another unlikely hero - Madonna's ex, and practically a person in his own right, Sean Penn went to Haiti after the earthquake to look into organising fundraising, but ended up living there for much of each year, sharing a 3-bedroom house with 20 other people and running the charity himself from the front line.

Between the optimist & the pessimist
The difference is quite droll:
The optimist sees the doughnut,
The pessimist sees the hole.